1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to static gaskets of the type used to establish a gas/fluid-tight seal between two members to be clamped together, and more particularly to multilayer static gaskets, such as a cylinder head gasket.
2. Related Art
In establishing a gas/fluid-tight seal between two members to be clamped together, such as a cylinder head and engine block, it is common to use a static cylinder head gasket having multiple layers. Generally, at least one of the layers of the multilayer gasket, sometimes referred to as a functional layer, has a seal bead to facilitate establishing a gas/fluid tight seal. Another of the layers, sometimes referred to as a distance layer, is configured to abut the functional layer in an effort to establish the gas/fluid tight seal by compressing the seal bead of the functional layer. Unfortunately, while fastening the cylinder head to the engine block, or during high loading in use, damage can occur to the seal bead or other regions of the gasket, such as peripheral regions adjacent fasteners, through over-compression of the gasket. If the seal bead is over-compressed, and completely flattened, in addition to losing its ability to exert a sufficiently high compression sealing pressure between the members being sealed, fatigue cracks can result in the area of the seal beads, such as during clamping and/or while in use. The fatigue cracks ultimately reduce the ability of the static gasket to establish and/or maintain a gas/fluid-tight seal, thereby diminishing the life and performance of the engine.